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Have you ever heard of Tetris? Of course you have! That beeping music as the blocks dropped down and you frantically tried to rotate the shape to make it fit best into your array. Now with all nostalgic games, it was not perfect but we all had a blast playing. There are a whole host of modern board games that have taken aspects of this great computer game and made them into some absolutely brilliant board games. As you can expect, these come in a huge variety of flavours and types, but this guide hopefully will help you find the game suitable for you.
For Those Who Loved Tetris & Have Younger Kids
If you have ever played tetris then there is no other game that I can better suggest than the Ubongo series. Polynomial tile laying games are one of the most accessible and easy to understand types of games for new gamers in my opinion, and this series offers you the most simple of gameplay coupled with great fun. In this game you are taking polynomial pieces and placing them into a grid, generally this will be a race against your fellow players to try and get the tiles in the right orientation.
If you have little ones, this is perfect for you, it is like a puzzle, and oftentimes in a similar way to Dobble, kids are actually better at this than adults. There is a Ubongo Junior version which I really rate as a kids game for any child over perhaps 3 or 4. During this game you will be racing to place your jungle animal pieces into the grid and gain yourself some gems. First player gets 4 gems, 3 for second and so on. You can determine the end of the game based on how “excited to play” the kids are, or go for a standard 3 or 5 rounds before counting up the gems and determining the winner.
For Those Who Love Animals
If you like cute looking games then I really think you cannot get any better than Uwe Rosenburg’s New York Zoo. This is a zoo building, animal breeding tile laying extravaganza! During this game you will be managing the creation of your own zoo by placing out enclosures as well as attractions. The gameplay follows a similar turn sequence to Patchwork of Trekking Through History whereby the person at the back goes next. The rondel that you move the elephant meeple around will allow you to either place tiles into your zoo, or collect animals for your enclosures. You will want to choose your next landing spot carefully both to ensure you get the best thing for you without giving away great things to your fellow players. When you land on a tile space you will take the top tile in that bay and place it into your zoo. You can move 1 or 2 identical animals into this enclosure ready for the next breeding season.
The movement of the elephant around the board will also trigger breeding of animals. This game has amazing animeeples, there are arctic foxes, kangaroos, meerkats, penguins and my personal favourite flamingos. You will be trying to manage the breeding of your animals as well as you can because once an enclosure is completely full up with identical animals, you are able to place attraction tiles into your zoo. These are important to help with winning as the way to win is to fill up your zoo first, so you will need to get these additional tiles to get ahead of your opponents.
If you like animals, you like tile laying and want a game that combines them both then you really cannot go wrong with picking up a copy of New York Zoo.
For Those Who Want Something Portable
If you are looking for a game that you can take with you almost anywhere, then really look no further than the roll and write that is Cartographers. I did cheat a little as in this game you will be drawing the polynomial shapes rather than laying down tiles, but I feel you should let me have this small infraction of the rules, as this game is an utter banger.
During the game you will be all drawing the same shapes into your map grid and trying to best achieve the goals set out for that round. You will be placing one type of land; villages, forests, pastures, water down in a tetris style shape onto your map. By placing, I do mean drawing, but you are still building out your map to try and maximise your score. There is some player interaction in that there are monster cards that can come out each round. You have to pass your precious map to the player to your left who will draw the monster on for you, of course in the exact place you wished that they had not.
The game is played over four rounds and each round will use a different combination of two scoring cards. In round one, you will use cards A&B, then B&C, C&D and finally A&D. You will get a lot more time to prepare for the later objectives than those earlier, and once the second round is over you can completely ignore objective B from then on. There is a bunch of replayability in this as the combination of scoring objectives is always fresh. If you want something that you can play with any number of people and on the go then you need to have a look at this one. You may also be interested in checking out the new Cartographers Heroes version which adds in heroes to help you fight off monsters without needing to surround them, as well as bringing in some really nasty monster cards too.
For Those Wanting An Experience Together
My City is a legacy game which plays out over 24 games. Now forgive me, for I know that this sounds like a lot of games, but please believe me when I say I would play this game 60 times over happily and not be bored. In the first game everyone will receive an identical board and set of blue, red and yellow tiles that they will place to try and cover as much as possible.
On your map there will be trees that are worth points, a well that you will want to surround with four different tiles, and rocks that are worth negative points if they are left uncovered. You’ll be trying to arrange your tiles such that you can score large contiguous groups of each colour.
Each player is given the same tiles at the same time, but you will find that you will deviate in your strategical placement pretty early on in the game. Our finding is that games are pretty closely contested for the win. As this is a legacy game, you will get stickers, new rules and new components as you open each envelope and play each game. This is more than just a game, it is an experience. If you want something to enjoy as a group that you will keep thinking about between games then you simply cannot go wrong with this one.
For Those Looking For Something A Little Harder
Llamaland is one of the more difficult Phil Walker-Harding games, where you work both across the table and up too as you stack tiles for extra bonuses. During this game, you are llama farmers in South America building yourself a life containing llamas, potatoes, corn and cacao.
On your turn, you will be trying to select a polyominal tile that will either help you to build a sturdy base for later building on or ideally to help you to improve your standing by building up and gaining resources to feed llamas, people to help you out in your efforts or cash to pay for missing food. Llamas seem to be cool with eating coins when food is scarce! Your aim is to collect resources in order to feed llamas. These llama cards are worth points, anything from 5 to 15 points each depending on how quickly in the game you are able to grab them, and will also help you to achieve the end game objectives too. Once you feed a llama and claim the points for your own, you must take the small hit of having to place a cute little llama meeple into your farm. This meeple can only go onto an empty grass space, and you will want to place it carefully to ensure that you do not create a problem for future you by blocking off prime real estate. Additionally, in each game there will be end game objectives that require you to have your llamas in specific orientation or on particular levels on your farm.
This game is an utter banger for us, the components are chunky and great to play with, and there are cute llama-meeples to play with. The game play is pretty swift back and forth, but with significant thinking required about which pieces you need to place yet.